The Cloud Industry Forum is calling for greater
education and promotion by ICANN about the proposed gTLD registry
consultation process, and to ensure it has taken appropriate
actions to ensure the consequences are understood and feedback is
sought rather than passively awaiting a deadline.

Andy Burton, chairman of the Cloud Industry Forum (CIF) states:
"Domain names are the building blocks of the internet, an
address book of sorts. Many people may be unaware that there
are significant plans afoot to launch some new Top Level Domains
(TLD's - these are the extension that appears after the
'dot' like .com, .co.uk, .org etc) that will help shape the
future for navigating the Internet."

The global body governing this activity is ICANN (Internet
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) and last year they
opened up applications for new global TLD's which included a
number of generic phrases like .CLOUD, .APP and .SEARCH.
However, applications have been made by some large organisations to
register these TLD's as what if referred to as a 'closed
registry', meaning that only the owner of the TLD decides who
can have a second level domain such as "acme.CLOUD".

This should be a huge concern for anyone keen to see an open
market and the preservation of common sense as no single commercial
entity should be able to lay claim the phrase cloud and dominate
the use of this as a TLD on the internet.

The big worry according to Andy Burton: "is that most
people are not even aware this activity around preparing for new
TLD's is underway, let alone that there have been applications
for .CLOUD or that some of those applications are promoting a
closed registry for this generic industry phrase. I am very
confident that if the education process had been better we would
have seen a lot of action before now to ensure common sense
prevails. However, I would like to point out that it is not
too late for anyone to act as the window for public comments and
objections to the granting of closed registry applications is open
to the 5th March and a more formal approach for Industry
Bodies such as the CIF to put in a Community Objection is open
until the following week."

Frank Jennings, cloud lawyer at DMH Stallard and chair of the
Cloud Industry Forum Code of Practice Board added: "Allowing
one commercial organisation to turn a generic term, cloud, into a
closed domain registration scheme is likely to be anti-competitive.
A scheme which excludes the wider cloud sector in favour of one
organisation may even be contrary to ICANN's own Affirmation of
Commitments to "promote competition, consumer trust, and
consumer choice". A new .CLOUD domain should be managed by a
not-for-profit registrar, allowing all those who operate in the
cloud sector to apply to register."

ICANN has been working on the new gTLD domain programme since as
far back as 2003, with major consultations taking place until 2008
when the ICANN board adopted a number of policy recommendations for
introducing them, which included a number of allocation criteria
and contractual conditions.

Graham Taylor, CEO of Open Forum Europe stated: "We support
CIF in their concern based on a number of issues not least the fact
that the broader market appears to be completely oblivious of the
proposed changes to gTLD registry. We are convinced that if they
are aware of the fact that some commercial organisations are
applying for generic categories in the industries in which they
compete, and could operate them at their discretion without having
to abide by a clear set of rules, this is anti-competitive in the
extreme and in particular regard to .CLOUD will only serve to
confuse the market about a nascent method of delivering IT as a
service. In the same way as the Internet itself was successfully
built on the principle of Openness - open standards, open access,
and free of restriction allowing innovation for all – so must
the Cloud. It will be only too easy to slip into the bad old days
of lock-in to closed systems, controlled by single
suppliers"

It is noteworthy that in 2009 ICANN signed what was termed the
"Affirmation of Commitments" with the United States
Department of Commerce. In that document ICANN agrees that its
mission statement includes a commitment to promoting competition,
consumer trust and consumer choice.

"The point of the TLD expansion as articulated by ICANN was
to organise the web and foster competition and consumer choice as
set out in the Affirmation. However, closed generic TLDs will
have the equal and opposite effect by favouring the owners of
closed registries," added Burton. "Closed
registries are fine where a brand or trademark is involved, but
where the phrase is generic, as is the case with .CLOUD it is
absolutely inappropriate to lock out the wider market from
participation."

Taylor added "We must remember we are taking about the very
fabric of the internet, about the fact that it should be seen as a
level playing field. We must avoid the danger of seeing a two tier
internet where any single company could limit choice and lock out
the competition."

"Common sense needs to come into play here as does a quick
check on what can be trademarked or not. After all there have been
plenty of times in corporate history when some organisation or
other has attempted to trademark a generic industry phrase and has
been shot down by the courts. This logic needs to be applied
again now," continued Burton.

The .CLOUD generic top-level domain (gTLD) is one such
example. If one commercial organisation ultimately wins control
over the .CLOUD registry in a closed form, then no individuals,
organisations or businesses will be able to register and use a
second level .CLOUD name for their website without that owners
permission. Burton concluded "We are not against the launch of
dot CLOUD, but we require it at the very least to be an Open
Registry where the rules around access are not limited to a single
commercial entity but are operated on an industry basis.

According to Andrew Corbett, Development Director of the UK IT
Association (UKITA), "a monopoly of the .CLOUD domain risks
creating an unfair marketplace in which all other cloud providers
are deemed inferior or less likely to be found if people select
vendors with the appearance of specific relevance by the form of
the TLD,"

"What we may be seeing here is at best an ill-informed
decision by large companies to seek to create a closed cloud
registry, worst case it is a deliberate attempt to muscle out the
smaller providers, ultimately at the expense of the end user
consumer of cloud services. Diversity in the cloud supply chain is
key to its success, but if one company or another does succeed in
claiming ownership of 'cloud', my fear is that many of the
more agile, specialist SMB providers will be razed to the
ground. We fully support CIF in raising this matter high on
the public agenda and encouraging people to have their say through
the formal processes available – but we all have to act
quickly if we want to ensure common sense prevails" stated
Andrew.

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